Larmandier Bernier New Releases

The Larmandier-Bernier Champagnes are some of the purest and most utterly engaging wines being made in the region today. I can’t recommend them highly enough. ANTONIO GALLONI, The Wine Advocate

Few growers’ ranges in Champagne are as consistently outstanding as that of Larmandier-Bernier. ANDREW JEFFORD, The New France

Pierre and Sophie Larmandier excel with statuesque, vinous Champagnes built on breadth, texture and an expression of place. Old vines, maniacal attention to farming, vinification in oak, and low dosage yields Champagnes of tremendous textural depth. ANTONIO GALLONI, Vinous

I’m increasingly convinced that Pierre Larmandier produced Champagne’s wines of the vintage this year, and the 2011 Extra-Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Vieille Vigne du Levant only compounds that suspicion. WILLIAM KELLEY, The Wine Advocate

Pierre and Sophie Larmandier’s Champagnes will be well familiar to long time devotees of great grower Champagnes. They have long stood tall amongst the most desired and sought-after producers such as Egly-Ouriet and Selosse and continue to break new ground each vintage. I can think of very few Champagne producers that can channel the rarefied chalky terroir of the Cote des Blancs with such clarity and sculptured detail as the Larmandiers do through their ground-breaking line-up of Champagnes.

Every decision in the vineyards and winery at Larmandier Bernier is made with a minimalist ethos in mind, a belief that the less you intervene, the brighter the terroir will shine. The vineyards are farmed biodynamically, a rarity in Champagne, and the long, slow ferments, which start with only indigenous yeasts, build layer upon layer of complexity. Dosage too is kept as low as possible so as not to cloud the purity of each wine and in the case of the Vertus cuvee, none is added at all.

These are Champagnes that are wonderfully fine and pure, yet at the same time incredibly deep and intense and always marked clearly with the unmistakable mineral lick of the Cote des Blancs. Today, we are offering the newly released and well-loved trio of Latitude, Longitude and Rose de Saignee, alongside the remarkable three single terroir Cote des Blancs cuvees of Vertus, Chemins d’Avize and Vieilles Vigne du Levant. The latter William Kelley believes is the Champagne of the vintage! There is one last treat however, an exciting new cuvee, the 2013 Rose de Maturation, a foray into the aging potential of their much loved Rose de Saignee with brilliant results.